Miscellaneous

Four years ago conservative Republican State Senator Cathy Giessel ran for reelection in south Anchorage. Her Democrat opponent was the President of the Alaska AFL-CIO, Vince Beltrami, and this election had the highest profile of any in the state. Beltrami accused Giessel of “name calling” and said “… she didn’t have a record to run on.” Giessel won with 52% of the vote, and it seemed significant at the time. But it wasn’t, not really.

A central issue in the race was the future of the Permanent Fund Dividend. Giessel ran a television commercial in which she pledged to the voters that she believed in the PFD, and would fight to protect it. Beltrami, like most Democrats, was ambivalent, at best. Alaska Democrats, generally, believe the government is better at spending this money than the public. Many low income Alaskans do not, in fact, spend their dividend money wisely. The government would do a better job, in Democrats’ minds.

Fast forward to today, and Vince Beltrami is one of Giessel’s strongest supporters. His union members are canvassing the district on her behalf. Union money helps fund her campaign. What has changed?

Cathy Giessel has changed. As Senate President, she led the fight against Governor Dunleavy’s spending vetoes. This meant that money that was intended for the dividend went to state spending instead. And this translated into a dividend of $992.

On Tuesday the voters of south Anchorage will decide if Giessel should be reelected. Her opponent in the Republican primary, Roger Holland, has promised to work to restore the full dividend.

Just like four years ago, it seems to be a very significant race. This time, if Giessel loses, it most certainly will be.

In the great test of its ability to create an alternate reality, the media is trying to convince the American people that Joe Biden is an actual candidate for the Presidency. But he’s not, not really. He’s a figurehead, a puppet, a placeholder. When the time is right he’ll be discarded, and Kamala Harris will become the actual President of the United States.

But the media has squandered its credibility, and doesn’t have the power to pull this off. Reality will win out, and Trump will continue his war with the ruling elite for four more years.

The elites will not surrender. They will go kicking and screaming, and in their desperation will destroy the institutions that they control. The lawyers and educators and entertainers, right along with the media that enables them, will never surrender. They are morally superior to the rest of us, and therefor entitled to rule. That moral superiority is the key to their self-worth, and essential to their concept of themselves. They’ll never let it go.

It’s a great time to be an American, and November 3rd can’t come soon enough.

Alaska’s Pebble Mine is in the news, as Donald Trump Junior urges his father to oppose it.  That won’t happen, in my opinion, because the Pebble Mine should be opened in the interest of national security.  For President Trump, our freedom from foreign suppliers is in the national security interest.  Pebble should be opened, if for no other reason, for its rare earth minerals.

Pebble is one of only two massive deposits of a particular type of ore.  The other deposit is in Indonesia, and is mined by Freeport-McMoran.  These ores are valuable mainly for their copper and gold content.  But Pebble has more than copper and gold, it has palladium and rhenium, rare earth minerals which are essential to high tech manufacturing.

Pebble can be safely developed, just as the Red Dog mine a few hundred miles north and west has been.  Red Dog is the largest zinc mine in the world.  It’s in the middle of the Alaska wilderness.  It has been in full operation for 34 years, with no environmental harm.  It’s on land owned by an Alaska Native Corporation, and the Natives of this region benefit handsomely from the profits of the mine.  420 people are employed there, with many of them Alaska Natives.

This should be the model for Pebble.  The operator of Red Dog, Teck Alaska Inc., must operate Pebble just as Red Dog is operated.  The local Native population must have a major financial stake in the development of the mine.  Natives need to employed, whenever possible, in the construction and operation of Pebble.  The highest environmental standards of any mine on earth should be imposed on the developer.  This is a highly sensitive area, and must be completely protected from damage to its environment.

President Trump will support Pebble because it’s in the national security interest of the United States.  But it will also be good for the Native people of Alaska, and the state as a whole.

I spent over forty years in Alaska, with time out as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division during World War II, and an Arctic survival instructor during Korea, and two trips to South America.

I was raised on a cattle ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the badlands of South Dakota, and left home at the age of 14 after completing the sixth grade.

I hoboed all over the western United States, Canada and Mexico, working the harvest fields, the timber lands, rodeos, road construction, mines, and prospecting for gold.  I prospected all over Alaska, and in between trips I worked for Cal Lathrop in the coal mines at Healy, on a survey crew on the DEW Line on the Arctic Ocean from Barrow to Barter Island, and points in between.  I guided the first cat train between Fairbanks and the Canadian Arctic for Al Ghezzi of the Alaska Freight lines, and worked on the docks at Valdez.  I was an assistant to Slim Moore (a big game guide) and took local hunters out on my own.

In 1953 I discovered the MacLaren River copper lode and in 1956 incorporated the MacLaren River Copper Corporation operation with my old partner Everett Albertson of Fairbanks.  I mined copper until the price was driven down and then frozen by our benevolent government.

In 1957 I married Helen Mary Lorell, also of the Pine Ridge Reservation, and thenceforth she accompanied me on my various ventures, with the exception of South America.

In 1963, because of the increased cost of supplies and wages and the low price of gold, I quit prospecting and purchased Sourdough Roadhouse on the Richardson Trail, which, with the exception of taking care of a goodly number of people from Valdez immediately following the great earthquake, was a resounding flop.

In 1965 we moved to Anchorage, where I appeared on television in a daily morning show between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. called Breakfast in Bedlam.  I had a 15-minute segment “Pettyjohn on Alaska” where I told stories of Alaska history, the dance hall girls, and the old sourdoughs.  The rest of the show I kibitzed.

In 1966 some of my loyal fans organized the Pettyjohn Fan Club, a first for Alaska. and which eventually numbered a membership of over 300 members.  While on television, and for many years afterwards, I lectured on Alaska history and told stories in Anchorage schools, at the Anchorage Museum of Fine Arts, and various civic clubs.

During the Alaska Centennial I was in charge of the Native artifact exhibits and the Native dancing at the Iglu-Puk, the Alaska Native Cultural Exhibit at Anchorage International Airport.

I was on the first Board of Directors at the Anchorage Museum of Fine Arts under Mike Kennedy, and produced and directed live stage shows circa the dance hall girls.

In 1970, along with Miki Ballard of Anchorage, I founded “The Alaskana”, a monthly publication dealing with Alaska history and stories of the goldrush days.  It was distributed to all the towns and Native villages of Alaska, and was carried by all the major airlines serving the state.

In 1978 during the great Peruvian gold rush, Mike Barrego, a prospector, and Jon Adams, an engineer, and I traveled to Peru to relocate Swiftwater Bill Gates’ lost gold mine.  We located the mine on the river Tunquimaye near Puerto Maldanaldo, District of Cuzco.  We leased the ground, and while Mike and Jon traveled through the jungle with an Indian crew to inspect the mine, I returned to Alaska to obtain additional financing.  When the boys reached Swiftwater Bill’s lost mine they found that all the gold had been mined out years before, and they returned to Alaska a mite disappointed.

I returned to Peru the following year by myself, employed an Indian crew, and commenced prospecting several jungle river systems.  Finding paying gold near the headwaters of the Rio Inanbari, District of Cuzco, I immediately leased 70,000 acres along said river.  We lost Swiftwater Bill’s mine and my holdings along the Inanbari due to a change in government, exactly as had Swiftwater in the old days.  Another fiasco.  So much for big dreams.

In my years in Alaska I prospected with a pack on my back and a pick and shovel, by horse and by dog teams, cross-country vehicles and river boats, D-8 cats, planes, and helicopters, sometimes with a crew of up to six men, but mostly alone.  I located and staked over 1,000 claims in Alaska alone, working or selling at least one-third of them.

In 1981 we moved to Prescott, Arizona, as I was employed by a group of New York investors as a consultant on the Glory-Anna gold mine just north of Phoenix.

In 1983 I retired, first in Happy Camp, California, thence to Mountain Gate, a suburb of Redding, California.

In 1984 and 1985, along with my nephew  Richard Pettyjohn, I prospected and staked 100 mining claims, just to keep a hand in.

My only regret is that I was never able to secure a large enough grubstake to prospect Antarctica, where I know the greatest mother lode of all creation must exist.

I am now 70 years old, and still ready to stampede at the merest whisper of gold.

 

[written by F. S. Pettyjohn in 1987]

There are groups of people in cities like Portland who have completely gone off the rocker.  These people are stone cold crazy.  I think it was the isolation that got to them.  All cooped up in their little apartments, with nothing to do but nurture your various pathologies.  They went nuts.

There is a whole lot of craziness going on in this country right now.  I think it’s infectious.  I think these people feed off each other.  The longer this goes on, the greater the rage that they feel.  It would be comical, except it’s very likely to end in serious bloodshed.

Unless.  Unless Attorney General Barr and the Department of Justice have the resources to put this fire out.  President Trump does not lack the will.  Let’s hope he has the means.

George Soros is a pathological America-hater, and he’s got some skin in this game.  I say charge him.  Even if there are holes in your case, an indictment would bring public attention to this sick, twisted man.

The media are beclowning themselves.  They’ve allowed the madness to infect them.  Their hatred of Trump has driven them over the edge, into a mockery of themselves.  They will never recover their credibility.

There are signs that Covid deaths have peaked, and started their slow decline.  If the downward curve resembles the upward one, this should all be over in November.

Just in time for what will really cause these people to lose it.  Trump in a landslide.